Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Gardening in Winter

After the disaster that became of our earlier broccoli, when it all went to seed after a couple of late summer stinkers (three days in a row of over 40C) we've just noticed that our next crop is doing beautifully. Winter is well and truly here and the days are quite cold, I suspect today didn't hit 10C, but the broccoli and the radicchio are loving life in the side garden. The hothouse is still churning out tomatoes despite the drop in temperature, but that won't be for much more than a week and we'll have to make green tomato chutney with the last of the unripe ones.

The chickens are very slack this winter, despite collecting three eggs a day last winter we aren't getting even one this year despite having three more chickens (although they're not quite old enough to lay yet). I'm wondering what we can do to get their shed warm enough for their taste - despite the fact that it was fine last winter!

We ate the rooster a fortnight ago, I was amazed by the intense flavour of non farmed chicken. It's a lot of work, all the plucking and gutting etc and it's not something I'd want to do routinely for poultry but the odd home brown rooster will definitely end up in the pot from now on.

About Me

We're a family committed to natural, non-institutionalised learning, at home! We love animals and gardening, and of course lots of other things too. Share the journey with us, as we work towards de-schooling ourselves and letting our children learn what they instinctively know they need to learn!